Welcome to
ESL Printables, the website where English Language teachers exchange resources: worksheets, lesson plans,  activities, etc.
Our collection is growing every day with the help of many teachers. If you want to download you have to send your own contributions.

 


 

 

 

ESL Forum:

Techniques and methods in Language Teaching

Games, activities and teaching ideas

Grammar and Linguistics

Teaching material

Concerning worksheets

Concerning powerpoints

Concerning online exercises

Make suggestions, report errors

Ask for help

Message board

 

ESL forum > Ask for help > agree + on / games for FCE    

agree + on / games for FCE



chenchen_castrourdiales
Spain

agree + on / games for FCE
 

Hi there,

Could you please help me out to sort out two problems I have? The first deals with the verb "agree". I have always used the preposition "with" after it, but sometimes it takes the preposition "on". When is the verb agree followed by "on"? Do you agree "with" sb and agree "on" sth?
My second question has to do with my FCE students. We spend almost all classes doing mocking tests. They hand me in two composition every week but last week they told me they are a bit fed up with the classes cos they are rather boring and monotonous. I feel under high pressure cos if they fail the test I feel it is my fault so I think playing games is a waste of time now they are about to sit the exam. Could you please share with me any game aimed at FCE exercises? I mean, a game which helps them widen their vocabulary and so it helps them sail through the word formation task.
 
Thanks in advance.

17 Jan 2011      





silvanadelval
Argentina

Hi chenchen!

As far as I know, you agree WITH someone ON something; that is to say, WITH precedes the person you share views with and ON precedes the subject matter.

As for FC games, there is one that has always worked with my students that is called Running dictation. This is the explanation I have found in http://www.english-4kids.com/dictation.html:

 Skills: reading, writing and spelling. 

How to Play:

Levels: High Level Kids to teenagers 
Requirements: pen and paper and text excerpts. 
General Rules: Divide class into teams. In each team there is a reader and a writer.  Paste texts (usually short text) at the back of the class. Tell each the readers of each team that they will run to a text, read and memorize a part of it. As quickly as possible they will run  back and dictate the text to the writer in their group. The writer writes while s/he goes back to read more text. The group that finishes writing their text first wins.
 Runners (readers) cannot write the words. They must dictate what they read in the text to the student writing. They cannot help in the writing but they can tell him/her how to spell words. 
    The team that finishes first wins and reads out the text to the class.
Tips: Put students of mixed abilities together.

The richness of/key to this activity lies on the preparation of the text to be dictated (which, of course, you will have to write yourself!). In this text, you should include all the language exponents (vocabulary and/or grammar structures you want to practice) that your students find most difficult to tackle, so that when memorizing them, dictating them or writing them down, these language items are practised.

A variation I have come up with for this game is to divide the class into teams and to make them- as opposed to you- prepare short texts following certain guidelines (for instance,  the instructions for the team to prepare a text could be something along these lines: "You should include 3 vocabulary items related to crime and punishment, 2 phrasal verbs you have learnt in this course and a conditional type 3 sentence"). Once they have produced these texts, you correct them and re-type them without mistakes and then the Running dictation takes place. This variation will take a couple of classes but it �s really worth investing some time in its preparation with students since they benefit enormously from the word go in the sense that they start working with the target language since they begin to prepare the texts which, once corrected by you, they (say, team A) will stick at the back of the class and the other teams will dictate to their writers while team A will follow suit using the text that another team has written.

Well, I guess this is all I can contribute. 

All the best from Argentina!

Silvana

17 Jan 2011     



Zora
Canada

You can "agree with" somebody or smb �s opinion/decision. You "agree on" something... a subject, a restaurant, a hotel to stay in, a place to rent, a movie to see... 

17 Jan 2011